1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to detecting telecommunications fraud using intelligent predictive modeling systems.
2. Description of the Related Art
The rapid growth of the telecommunications industry has been accompanied by a correlative increase in telecommunications fraud. In some situations, however, a telecommunications service may be accessed or obtained in an undesirable fashion, e.g., by fraud, theft, or other nefarious activity, and unauthorized use may ensue. Providers take control actions to stop the provision of service when it is used in an undesirable fashion, e.g., by blocking compromised calling card numbers before service is fraudulently obtained. Unfortunately, by the time fraudulent use is detected and control actions can be taken, there has often already been a significant unauthorized use of the co-opted service, resulting in expense to the service provider. Accordingly, there is a need for a way to identify undesirable and unauthorized use of a service at an early juncture, in order to minimize the amount of loss resulting from that use.
Additionally, long distance carriers regularly lease bandwidth from other carriers. On such occasions, the call data record (CDR) for the call is often stripped of identifying information such as the number from where the call was made (“originating number”). This is done so that the long distance company leasing the bandwidth (the lessor) and completing the call on behalf of another carrier will not attempt to solicit business from the caller at the originating number, who is presumably not one of the lessor's subscribers, but the lessee's subscriber. Unfortunately, this frustrates fraud control efforts, since the information that has been stripped from the CDR would normally be used subsequently to detect fraud. As a result, there is substantial opportunity for fraud in these types of bandwidth exchanges. What is needed is a way to use the information stripped from the CDR to predict fraud, without divulging the stripped information to the provider providing the bandwidth. Brief Summary of the Invention.
The present invention provides a system that includes a predictive model for detecting fraud in Call Data Records (CDRs). Telephone companies (Telcos) provide CDRs to the system, and the CDRs are then evaluated against Telco-specified rules; each participating Telco may define it own set of rules for evaluating calls made through that Telco. If one or more of a Telco's rules are matched, then the system generates an alert. All pending alerts for a caller (individual or company or portion thereof) form a case. The case also contains details—such as a statistical summary of alert-generating calls—about the caller's calling history. The case, current alert information, and a variety of risk factors serve as inputs to the predictive model. The predictive model outputs a score that is predictive of the likelihood that the call being made is fraudulent. This information is then queued for examination by analysts. The queue is designed so that calls that are more likely to involve fraud are examined earlier. After an analyst has made a determination about whether the call involved fraud, or alternatively, if no decision is made on the case within a pre-specified time, the case is saved in a case database. The fraud/no-fraud decision is used to update the risk factors and the predictive model to improve predictions about future alerts.
The features and advantages described in this summary and the following detailed description are not all-inclusive, and particularly, many additional features and advantages will be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art. Moreover, it should be noted that the language used in this disclosure has been principally selected for readability and instructional purposes, and may not have been selected to delineate or circumscribe the inventive subject matter, resort to the claims being necessary to determine such inventive subject matter.
The figures depict a preferred embodiment of the present invention for purposes of illustration only. One skilled in the art will readily recognize from the following discussion that alternative embodiments of the structures and methods illustrated herein may be employed without departing from the principles of the invention described herein.